Devine still running wild with Fraga carrying load

By Lorne Chan :
November 7, 2012
: Updated: November 8, 2012 12:17am

Running backJoseph Fraga poses Wednesday Nov. 7, 2012 at the Devine practice facility. Out from under the shadow of fellow Devine running back, Fraga has rushed for 2,400 yards so far this season which includes a 454 yard effort last week.

A year later, Devine is in the middle of another remarkable season with Fraga as the star.

“When you look at the way they practice, they play and they conduct themselves, you can't tell the difference,” Devine coach Chad Quisenberry said. “Well, Sadler has the red hair.”

Sadler, the 2011-12 Express-News Athlete of the Year, rushed for 3,887 yards last season to set an area record, and his 451 points scored were two shy of the national record. He also was Devine's kicker.

Sadler had 2,418 rushing yards after nine games last season, only 23 more than Fraga has now.

According to Texas high school football records, Ken Hall, the “Sugar Land Express,” topped 3,000 yards for three seasons from 1951-53.

Johnathan Gray, who broke Hall's career touchdown record last season, reached 3,000 in 2010 and '11 at Aledo and is now starring at Texas as a freshman.

Devine would be the first Texas team to have different 3,000-yard rushers in consecutive seasons.

“I'm kind of shocked by everything,” Fraga said. “It feels amazing, but I can't say I was expecting all this.”

With Sadler gone this season, few were expecting this.

The 2011 season was historic for Devine, with 13 victories to set a school record. It left such an impact that three of the four walls in Quisenberry's office feature team photos commemorating the season.

And now, the Warhorses might do it all over again.

Fraga had a 29-carry, 454-yard performance in a 61-29 victory against Carrizo Springs last week, where he only carried the ball once in the second half — a 91-yard TD.

Sadler, at 5-foot-10, was considered undersized and is now a running back at Incarnate Word. Fraga is even smaller at 5-7 and 165 pounds.

Sadler may have been the most popular man in town, a part of the seventh generation of Sadlers to live in Devine.

Fraga, whose father works for an oil company and whose mother is a waitress, is just as much a symbol of Devine — a majority-Hispanic, blue-collar town of 4,350 people.

The Warhorses' success is a testament to the system at Devine, where Quisenberry is in his ninth season as coach and 19th overall. His record is 83-22.

Devine has a slim playbook that some Warhorses estimated at about a seven-play rotation. It averages five pass attempts per game. But it moves fast and uses plenty of formations to keep opponents guessing.

“Those plays have been burned into our memories since seventh grade,” said Sadler, who hopes to become a coach at Devine (11 of Devine's 15 middle school and high school coaches are former Warhorse players). “You could blindfold everybody, and they'd know who to block.”

Tight ends Zach Monreal and Andrew Miller are a prime example of the Devine method. They're tight ends by name only, functioning more as offensive tackles.

Monreal has three catches all season and Miller has none, but they're vital parts of Devine's blocking scheme.

“I still think it's more because of the players than the system that we're doing this,” Miller said. “The system's been around for a long time, but it takes a lot of work to do what we've been doing.”

According to MaxPreps, Fraga leads the state in rushing this season and is ranked No. 15 in the nation among running backs.

The way he's carried on Devine's running ways has earned plenty of approval from the Gingerbread Man.

“He's a little more shifty than me,” Sadler said. “He can make people miss. A lot of people in Devine are proud of him, and I'm one of them.”